The Road Warriors revolutionized the business of professional wrestling by introducing massive, bodybuilding-type muscularity to pro wrestling. Hawk (Mike Hegstrand) and Animal (Joe Laurinaitis) were two bodybuilders-powerlifters who succeeded in becoming one of the most successful tag teams in the history of pro wrestling. Laurinaitis collaborated with Andrew William Wright to recount his memoirs in “The Road Warriors: Danger, Death and the Rush of Wrestling”.
Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis acknowledged the use of anabolic steroids by the Road Warriors but downplays the importance of steroids as a contributor to the success of the tag team. Laurinaitis also downplays the side effects of steroids explaining the steroids are unfairly demonized.
“You ask any sports doctor, and they’ll tell you that steroids aren’t the bad boys they’re perceived to be,” he adds. “The thing about anabolic steroids is that they work and they heal you up. I don’t think there are any documented cases of anybody OD’ing on steroids or dying from steroids. It’s always something else that’s contributing to that problem.”
“Back then guys just had to be smart. Some were and some weren’t. Fortunately we were smart,” says Laurinaitis, who bench-pressed more than 600 pounds in his heyday. “We got blood tests and if one level was off one way or the other, the doctor would tell us to get off them. And it wasn’t like we were on them year-round. The guys who take them all year-round are stupid. I’ll be the first one to tell you that. Once they became illegal we stopped. I had no problem with that. I was a 260-pound guy to begin with. It really didn’t affect me. A lot of guys couldn’t tell whether I was on or off. I was still a 500 pound-benching guy.”
Laurinaitis suggests that anabolic steroids can be used responsibly if monitored by a physician and cycled off but he also recognizes that many wrestlers abuse steroids. Nonetheless, Laurinaitis does not believe steroids are responsible for the early deaths of many former pro wrestlers; he suggests that other factors are to blame.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
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